Cheesefare Sunday

[michael_legna]

Can I just use the standard forgiveness I apply to all your posts every day?

[Symeon]

Originally Posted by Darth_Bill

I was a bitter man yesterday. Please forgive me of my ill-phrased remarks.

Forgiven, forgotten.

[Darth_Bill]

>Can I just use the standard forgiveness I apply to all your posts every day?

No, you have to carry them around your neck until you sink into a seething pit of despair and wretched existance.

Why should you be any different?

[Don]

Bishops Bend Lenten Rules for St. Patrick's Day
By EMILY FREDRIX
ap
MILWAUKEE (March 15) - Michael O'Leary doesn't need to choose between sinning and nibbling this St. Patrick's Day.

O'Leary will enjoy his corned beef on Friday with a clear conscience -- thanks to a special dispensation from another Irish-American, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee.

Dolan is among dozens of bishops -- from Green Bay, Wis., to Arlington, Va., to Chicago to Boston -- granting one-day dispensations from Lenten rules that prohibit Roman Catholics from eating meat on Fridays to observe the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In many cases, the bishops are asking for a similar day of penance in exchange for relaxing the rules this Friday.

Many bishops offered the same deal the last time St. Patrick's Day fell on a Friday during Lent -- in 2000. The Archdiocese of New York has always extended a dispensation when the calendar lined up because St. Patrick is the patron saint of the archdiocese, spokesman Joseph Zwilling said.

If Dolan hadn't granted the dispensation, O'Leary, director of Milwaukee's St. Patrick's Day parade, said he would stick to the rules -- meaning he wouldn't prepare his corned beef brisket. But with the bishop's blessing, he plans to put a brisket in his slow cooker early Friday morning and slather it with mustard and other condiments come dinner time.

"It is being done in honor of St. Patrick," O'Leary said. "It's not as though I'm having something I would normally have. It's a special thing."

The connection between Ireland and corned beef dates to colonial times in Boston, when meat was imported from Ireland and preserved in salt, said Kevin O'Neill, history professor in the Irish Studies program at Boston College. The result -- corned beef -- was associated with Ireland.

While eating meat on a Friday in Lent isn't considered a mortal sin - the gravest category - it does take a dispensation for the church to lift the rule. At least 67 of the country's nearly 200 dioceses provide such dispensations, said Rocco Palmo, a Catholic commentator who has been keeping an informal count on his blog "Whispers in the Loggia."

Milwaukee parishioners can take their dispensation elsewhere: In other words, they can eat corned beef if they travel. But people shouldn't come in from other areas - where they haven't received dispensation - just to eat meat, said Kathleen Hohl, spokeswoman for the Milwaukee Archdiocese. People should strive for moderation and not overindulge, she said.

"It's a dispensation. It's meant to be observed in an appropriate way," Hohl said.

Each local bishop has the authority to allow Catholics in his diocese to forgo the traditional abstention of meat on Fridays or other rules of Lent, said Bill Ryan, spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Typically, bishops will determine if there's a need, he said, such as having a large Irish population.

Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City, Iowa, has opted against a dispensation to the 100,000 Catholics in his diocese.

Many parishes moved their St. Patrick's Day celebrations to Thursday or Saturday, said Jim Wharton, spokesman for the Sioux City Diocese. That allows them to go ahead with their Lenten fish fry events - a Friday staple that typically yields money for school or parish projects, he said. Not one Catholic in the diocese has called him wondering why dispensation wasn't granted, he said.

"For the most part, I think people understand it's really why we are who we are as a Catholic family and that's to observe some of the traditions of the church," Wharton said.

In exchange for his corned beef meal, O'Leary said he plans to give up something else, such as chicken wings or beer on a weekend when he's watching sports on television.

"I will deny myself something and pay it back," O'Leary said.

[michael_legna]

Alot of falderal for nothing. Sure it is only a discipline and the Bishop has the authority to offer the dispensation. But I personally think if you are going to fast then fast - St. Patrick will understand.

[Don]

I am not trying to be negative, but why do RCC people NOT see all this "legerdermain" as complex and legalistic baggage? That is what it appears to me on the outside, so this is another of those baffling things to me.

I mean, if you travel you are OK if your bishop granted an "out" but do not travel to obtain an "out". So we get a checkerboard of "ins" and "outs" across the US, except NYC said they are always "out" cuz they "own" Paddy somehow? Mind bogglingly Byzantine to me anyway.

I am a believer and rejoice when pagans, Hindu's, etc. become RCC, even tho I disagree with them on some things, but it is this kind of thing that I see as giving an easy target to people that want to disparage the faith.

Don

[michael_legna]

Originally Posted by Don

I am not trying to be negative, but why do RCC people NOT see all this "legerdermain" as complex and legalistic baggage? That is what it appears to me on the outside, so this is another of those baffling things to me.

Why would anyone think you were trying to be negative when you use such a friendly word as legerdemain (meaning magic trick, conjuring, illusion or deception)?

But seriously I see your point. If Catholics see any of this as a legalistic manner of pleasing God then I think they are wrong.

Admittedly it is complex and it is legalistic (isn't all discipline) but only so much as you see it as literally binding on you. Again, it is all about the spirit of the law, not the letter. Besides the other spiritual development issues we have already discussed, I follow the disciplines of the Church as a sign of submission to the authority of the Church, not because I can in some way please God by the rote performance of them. However I think the spirit of these disciplines does please God, because it means I acknowledge the authority of His Church.

I fear that not all Catholics think this through as I do so I worry too about them in this matter. But I am not so vain as to be sure they have not thought it through better than I have; so I am careful not to judge them on this issue. Worry - yes, judge - never.

I also am concerned that once someone chooses to accept the Church's disciplinary instructions on an issue such as fasting that they would be concerned with it conflicting with some other isse and seek a dispensation, but again I do not judge them on this as they may know more than I do on the issue. I guess I fall back to - since these are ONLY issue of discipline it is up to the individual how rigorously they interpret them as applicable to themselves. If people are comfortable following the Bishops dispensation then more power to them. If they feel they are still submitting to the authority of the Church (as well they could since they have the apporval of the Bishop) then that is all that the discipline is meant to show, as far as I am concerned.

I personally try to keep things simple and I will be abstaining. Besides I hate corned beef and cabbage.

[Darth_Bill]

>That is what it appears to me on the outside, so this is another of those baffling things to me.

Just humanity having too much time on their hands.

[Symeon]

Just F everyone's I, the usual Orthodox practice, when a major feast day falls during the Great Fast, is to permit people to eat fish and drink wine, on the day.

Annunciation Day (March 25) is a good example of this, those years when Pascha falls after March 25. (This only happens in Orthodox churches that follow the Julian Calendar throughout the year.)

Also just F everyone's I, I've heard rumors that people in the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese are permitted to dispense with the Nativity Fast on America's Thanksgiving Day, to the scandal of some other Orthodox Christians who consider themselves to be people made of sterner stuff.

As it happens, that is a less-intense fast, anyway; it permits fish for most of its duration (including Thanksgiving Day).

I must admit it's amusing to hear somebody *else* being accused of being "Byzantine"!

[Don]

Hey, I did put "legerdermain" in quotes and here is the def from m-w.com
1 : SLEIGHT OF HAND
2 : a display of skill or adroitness

so I was trying not to be insulting. Just to be clear, I do not mean it as deception in any way. Just that it seems a little like "I take it away with my left hand and (sometimes) give it back with my right hand, watch closely now, do you have it or not" that sort of thing, which is VERY confusing to an outsider.

Don